


time and hearts will wear us thin

by lotts (LottieAnna)



Series: screenshot of youth [2]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Character Study, Coda, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-08 14:46:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14107659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LottieAnna/pseuds/lotts
Summary: (Sometimes, Jordan thinks,there’s no way Barzy and Beau end up like we did.Sometimes, Jordan thinks,Barzy and Beau are gonna end up exactly like we did.)





	time and hearts will wear us thin

**Author's Note:**

> IF YOU FOUND THIS THROUGH GOOGLING, KNOW ANYONE MENTIONED IN THIS STORY PERSONALLY, OR ARE MENTIONED YOURSELF: please, please click away. This is a work of fiction and nothing written in this story is true. Any accurate information used in this story is publicly available information about public figures, the rest is made up, 100%.
> 
> title from "sick of losing soulmates" by dodie. thanks to ang for encouraging this and reading it over (and coming up with the same summary and title as me), deja and jay for the beta read/feedback, and ftc for catching my typos. 
> 
> i had some jordan eberle feelings, so. here's a coda to "screenshot of youth."

No one would know it just by looking at them, because if anyone could do that, it would be Ebs, not because he’s, like, particularly observant, or anything, but because he’s lived this before, so he knows the signs. 

And even then, they manage to be pretty subtle. 

Here’s what tips him off: Barzy’s good with secrets, and he forgets to keep one. 

Not the big one, or anything. He doesn’t, like, accidentally let it slip that something happened, but there are a lot of small bits that leak out, smiles that aren’t meant for anyone else’s eyes, fear a little too thinly veiled, appearances composed a beat too late. There’s no information encoded in them, and Jordan has to fill in a lot of the gaps himself, and he doesn’t know how to, really. He’s not as dumb as he used to be, but he’s still not the greatest at puzzles. 

In any event, this isn’t information he’s sure he wants to have. 

Barzy guards these things well, and he lets Jordan in on a lot more than he deserves, because he’s a good kid whose heart is deceptively open. It’s so painfully familiar, in a lot of ways, except Barzy’s smarter at twenty than Jordan had been, and he’s probably already smarter than Hallsy will ever be. He’s careful, but it doesn’t take a genius to see that he’s gonna fall hard and fast the second he feels safe. 

And the thing is, there are some smiles that trick you, and some smiles that wrap you up and shield you from the world. 

For Barzy’s sake, Jordan hopes that Beau’s is the latter. 

 

Beau isn’t scared, Jordan notices. 

He’s a lot of other things—totally hung up on Barzy, on edge about being caught, unsure how to carry himself when the two of them are out with other people—but he’s not scared. 

It’s right there in his smile. Beau likes Mat, a hell of a lot, Jordan would guess, and Beau thinks they’re gonna be okay, no matter what. 

It’s a sensible way to think. Jordan remembers thinking it, and he remembers the way falling for your best friend seems like the greatest idea in the world. He still thinks that, some days, even though he’s not quite sure who he’s thinking about now. He’s really just lonely, when it comes down to it, and he misses having someone who feels like his, and a friendship that seems like more. 

But back to Beau: Jordan hope he’s right, but god, this kid has no idea what he’s getting into. 

 

(Sometimes, Jordan thinks, _ there’s no way Barzy and Beau end up like we did.  _

Sometimes, Jordan thinks,  _ Barzy and Beau are gonna end up exactly like we did.)  _

 

Jordan has his suspicions that he tries not to think about, but here’s when he knows: 

Beau gets sent down, and Mat’s heart breaks. 

Beau gets called back up, and it doesn’t get better. 

Then, things go fairytale-levels of well for them, and Jordan knows Mat lives for that kind of thing, savors those unreal moments more than he’d ever admit, and he’s still fucking sad, because, Jordan realizes, there’s a bigger story in the works here. 

And then he looks at Beau. 

He doesn’t want to; a lot of the time, Beau’s got a bright personality, but a heartbroken Beau is really like staring into the sun, because you can’t do it for too long before it starts to hurt. It’s awful, and Jordan feels a little bit like he’s gonna be sick, and there’s no way Mat is okay after that.  _ Jordan’s _ not okay after that, and all he’d seen was a broken boy, not a boy he’d broken, and he knows that’s so, so much worse. 

It’s shitty for both of them, and Jordan isn’t gonna let their story turn out the way his did. 

 

Three years ago, Jordan was the most single he’d been in years, and told himself he’d take some time to sort himself out, before promptly setting his feelings on the backburner and ignoring them. 

A year and a half ago, Hallsy got traded, and Jordan didn’t see the point in trying anymore, so he told himself he’d moved on. 

Over the summer, Jordan was traded to the Islanders, and now Taylor is close enough to touch, and Jordan is no closer to figuring himself out now than he had been then. 

So, when he happens to walk by an ice cream place in Montreal and see two familiar ankles hooked together under the table, he decides to make a phone call. 

 

“Okay, I know you probably don’t remember this, but it was really shitty when you gave that chick your number when I was standing right next to you,” Jordan says, as soon as the ringing ends. “I know there was nothing official, but, like, come on, I was  _ right there,  _ and you had to know there was something, and—” 

“Ebby, you know this isn’t a voicemail, right?” Taylor’s voice says on the other end. 

“I know,” Jordan snaps, even though he’d kind of thought it could be, which, looking back, makes no sense whatsoever, but whatever, he doesn’t make many phone calls. “I just needed to let some stuff out.” 

“Alright,” Taylor says, and he sounds neutral, which would piss Jordan off if it was anyone else, but it’s Taylor, so. “I do remember, by the way.” 

“You do?” 

“Yeah,” Taylor says. “I knew it was shitty, but I—I don’t know, I figured if I didn’t do it, it would be like there was a reason to not do it?” 

“Which there was,” Jordan says. 

“But I didn’t know if you thought there was? We didn’t talk about it then,” Taylor says. “We still don’t talk about it. Are we talking about this now?” 

“Think so, yeah,” Jordan says, a little breathless. 

“Are you drunk?” 

“No.” 

“Are you in therapy?” 

“What? It’s like, midnight,” Jordan says. 

“I meant, like, in general,” Taylor says. “Is that why you wanted to get things off your chest?” 

“Oh,” Jordan says. “No, but that might be a good idea.” 

“Probably.” 

“Are you?” 

“Am I what?” 

“In therapy,” Jordan says. 

“I was,” Taylor says. “The trade hit me kinda hard.” 

“I’m sorry,” Jordan says, thrown off by how casual Taylor sounds, even though Jordan’s chest feels unbelievably tight at the thought of Taylor being that sad. 

“Eh,” Taylor says. “It was weird. Like, for the first time, I didn’t even want to play hockey? I was so freaked.” 

“I bet,” Jordan says. “But—you’re better now?” 

“Yeah,” Taylor says. “I mean, that’s not why I stopped going. It was helpful to have someone to talk to.” 

“What about the guys on the team?”

“I talk to them too,” Taylor says. “I talk to a bunch of people, about a lot of different things.” 

“Well said,” Jordan says, and then Taylor laughs on the other end. 

“Fuck you,” he says, good-natured as ever. “Friends and therapists are different kinds of people. It was nice to have both.” 

“So why’d you stop seeing her?” Jordan asks. 

“Uh…” Taylor says. Jordan can picture the way he’s probably furrowing his brow, and he has to stifle a laugh. “I think I forgot to schedule an appointment with her?”

“One appointment?” 

“Yeah,” Taylor says. “Oh, shit, I should email her.” 

“Hallsy,” Jordan says. 

“Okay, listen, scheduling appointments when you’re on the road is hard as balls.” Taylor says. “It’s fine, I still have her number, and, like, other numbers.” 

“That’s good, then,” Jordan says. “Uh, so, did you ever talk to her about—that stuff? Like, the two of us?” 

“A little,” Taylor admits. “I didn’t—like, I looked it up, it’s way fucking illegal, and like, a major therapy foul if she tells anyone about it.” 

“I know that much,” Jordan says. “Just—what do you think about it? Looking back?” 

Taylor takes a breath. “Well, we were young.”

“And we’re so old now?”

“A little bit,” Taylor says. “Older. And I know, that’s just how time works, but—you know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” Jordan says. 

“And we were… confused,” Taylor says. “Well, I was confused, and so were you, if you’re yelling at me about it twenty years later—”

“Four years.”

“Whatever,” Taylor says. “Point is, we, uh—we didn’t really know what we were doing, I guess.” 

Jordan gulps. “Right,” he says.

“So we weren’t—you can’t be with someone if you never talk about it,” Taylor says. “There’s a difference between pretty much dating someone and actually dating, you know?”

“And we weren’t—we didn’t talk,” Jordan says. 

“We didn’t,” Taylor says. “So even if the feelings were there—it’s like, you can go out to a store, pick out a really nice gift, wrap it, and write a really nice card, but if you leave it at home, you still didn’t give them the gift.”

“Oh,” Jordan says. 

“Did you follow that?”

“Yep.”

“I didn’t actually buy you a gift.”

“I got that part.”

“Just checking,” Taylor says. “So, I mean. Yeah.”

Jordan nods, then remembers Taylor can’t see him. “I never got around to giving you that metaphorical gift.”

“Metaphor!” Taylor says. “That’s the word for it.”

“Oh my god, you’re a role model for children, Hallsy.”

“I’m a hockey player!” Taylor protests. “So I mean. I would’ve given you that metaphor-present, but I didn’t know if you’d gotten me one, so I like, chickened out and left it in my car on purpose? Because I didn’t know we were the kind of friends who could even buy each other presents like that.”

“I don’t know if this holds up on my end,” Jordan says. “It’s like—can you accidentally wrap a present?”

“Okay, I asked my therapist the same thing,” Taylor says. “She said to not worry too much about that part. But it’s like—” Taylor huffs out a breath. “Okay, fuck metaphors, they’re confusing. I just liked you a lot, Ebby.”

Jordan takes a second, and then, before he can second guess himself, “I liked you a lot too, Hallsy.” He pauses. “I mean, I still do.” 

“I meant—like-like. Boyfriend-like.”

“Yeah,” Jordan says, and then he bites his lip. “Yeah.”

There’s a second of silence, and Jordan honestly has no idea what he’s feeling, or what he wants to be feeling. It’s a little bit of relief, a lot of regret, a weird urge to cry, but a strange zen thing, too, and above all, his heart is beating too hard in his chest for him to really sort through any of it. 

Taylor is the one to break it. “I went on a few dates with guys over the summer.”

“You—what?”

“Yeah,” Taylor says. “I just—I wanted to see if that was something I was into, I guess? Like, generally?”

“Yeah?” Jordan says. 

“Yeah,” Taylor says. 

“So,” Jordan says. “What’s the verdict?” 

“I mean… yeah,” Taylor says. “I think I am.”

Jordan’s heart stops beating at that. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Taylor says. “Does that make you feel weird?”

“What? No,” Jordan says, and it’s only half a lie, because he has never felt farther from normal in his life, but it’s not the kind of weird that Taylor’s talking about. 

“Okay, because if it was, that’d be so backwards—”

“No shit,” Jordan says. “So, like, are you still doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“Dating guys.”

“Like, in general—”

“I meant right now,” Jordan says. “Are you—dating a guy right now.” After a beat, he adds, “Or a girl, I don’t—are you seeing someone?”

“Right now?” Taylor says. “No, I’m not.” 

“I meant, like, is there anyone you’re currently dating,” Jordan says. “Not if you’re on a date right now—”

“I understood the question,” Taylor says, and Jordan can practically hear the shy, sly smile in his voice as he says, “Why do you want to know?” 

“Well,” Jordan says, “I was cleaning out some old stuff recently, and I found a present I never got to give you.”

“You mean a metaphorical one?”

“Yes, Hallsy, a metaphorical one.”

“Okay,” Taylor says, and Jordan very much wishes he could see the way he’s grinning, but for now, he’ll be content with what he can imagine based on memory. “Well, in that case, I have something for you too.”

“Wanna exchange gifts over coffee?” Jordan asks, a little worried his phone will slip out of his hand with how hard his palms are sweating. 

Then, Taylor lets out a laugh, small and incredulous, and Jordan is so happy he’s shaking. 

“Yeah,” Taylor says. “I think coffee will be good.” 

**Author's Note:**

> cw for vague discussions of mental health issues, themes of grappling with queerness and identity. 
> 
> i venmoed ang seven cents for emotional damages in the process of writing this.


End file.
